


You Blue Me Away

by Shadowling



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: First Kiss, Flower Crowns, Fluff, I'm sorry the title is a pun, M/M, the color blue - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-11
Updated: 2016-08-11
Packaged: 2018-08-08 03:07:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7740955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowling/pseuds/Shadowling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Pidge and Hunk are off hunting for new electronics, Shiro is hopefully relaxing, and Allura is doing that diplomat thing she does with Coran. You know, constructive things.</i>
</p><p>  <i>And Keith is with Lance surrounded by useless flowers.</i></p><p> </p><p>Klance Week Day 7: flowers/stars</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Blue Me Away

“Flowers are useless.”

“You lived in the desert for a year, so your opinion doesn't count,” Lance says, a pile of the bright, useless things in his hands already and completely unconcerned with being knee-deep in massive alien flowers. They seem to reach for him, clinging to him as he wades through them, searching for ones that meet his standards.

Keith crosses his arms, glares at Lance from his safe spot on the edge of the flower field. “Yes, it does.”

“No, it doesn't.”

“Yes, it does!”

Lance scowls. “Well your face is useless!” He picks a few more, the flowers almost swallowing him when he leans over, and tucks one behind his ear. “Just, like, lay in them for a little bit. Frolic. Maybe you'll stop frowning for a second.”

Keith looks distrustfully at the field of flowers stretched endlessly before him. They're all bright red with purple spots, the way a poisonous animal is colored to ward off predators, and have exactly four petals. He pokes at one with his foot, half expecting it to close around his shoe. Blue spores fall off the bottom of the petals, quickly blending into the blue stems below. “I don't think these are safe.”

Lance returns to him, cradling the flowers to his chest, and pats his shoulder. “You're just a spoil sport.” He dumps the bundle in his arms to the ground and sits next to them, peering up at Keith. “See?” He spreads his arms wide for Keith to inspect him. “I’m perfectly fine.”

“For now.” Keith sits down as well. He’s careful to avoid touching his bare skin to the pale blue grass to be safe, a precaution that doesn’t even seem to occur to Lance as he plucks a blade of grass out of the ground and puts it between his thumbs. “Don't,” Keith says, but Lance already has it to his mouth, a shrill, tuneless whistle echoing.

Keith grabs it out of his hands and rips it in half.

“You know we're sitting in grass? I can grab another one.”

“You know I've got my knife? I can grab it right now.”

Lance snorts. “What else is new? What, haven't cleaned it enough to see your reflection?” 

Keith scowls. “Your shoes are stained blue.”

“ _ What?! _ ” He scrambles for a look, sighs when he confirms the truth. “Ugh, whatever. It’ll wash off. Unlike that stupid mullet of yours.”

Keith crosses his arms, smirks. “How long do you think it'll take your ear to turn blue?” he asks, poking at the flower there. “Or your shirt?”

Lance doesn't even bother replying, just starts grumbling under his breath and fiddling with his plucked flowers. Keith can't tell if it's Spanish or just genuinely intelligible to anyone but Lance, but he just assumes they're insults and moves on with his life.

He turns his attention to the sky, watches tiny clouds move quickly across a lilac sky. It's almost funny how similar this planet is to Earth. Everything is just slightly wrong, like a five year old was asked to color in the planet and got creative. 

Hunk had theorized about it on the ship. Something about the quality of light from the sun or a difference in pigments. Keith hadn't really understood, lacking the prior knowledge Hunk assumed they all had, but then it isn't relevant. They’re here on a break. Pidge and Hunk are off hunting for new electronics, Shiro is hopefully relaxing, and Allura is doing that diplomat thing she does with Coran. You know, constructive things.

And Keith is with Lance surrounded by useless flowers.

He sighs and looks back to his oddly silent company.

Keith has no idea what Lance is doing, but he’s clearly enraptured by it. His hands move skillfully, efficient and precise in a way Keith would never associate with the paladin infamous for wrecking his lion off anything and everything. His tongue sticks out in concentration, and a low, satisfied hum escapes him each time he grabs a new flower. It's fascinating to watch, his fingers lightly coaxing the stems to bend to his will, weaving them together, adjusting the flowers to cover up any gaps, and Keith finds himself absorbed in the process, unaware until Lance stops and shows him the finished product, proud.

“...What is it?” Keith asks, genuinely stumped.

“A flower crown!” Lance places it on his head and grins, dark brown hair poking up around the sides. It's crooked. Keith's hands itch to straighten it. “I'm gonna make everyone one!”

Keith raises a single, critical eyebrow. “Won't that turn everyone's hair blue?”

Lance shrugs, picks up two flowers and begins his work. “I don't think so. My hands probably rub off most of it,” he says, showing Keith the pale blue color of his hands. “If my hair starts turning blue then it'll be even better to give them some. Imagine Pidge with blue hair!” His smile is devious, impish on his face. 

Keith looks away. He looks back, watches Lance’s fingers until he manages to force himself to look at the sky, to remember how fast the clouds moved on Earth in comparison. 

“Keith, look!” Lance shoves a crown in front of his face. There are two flowers sticking out of the top like a pair of antennae. “Guess who it’s for.”

Keith shoves it out of his face. “I don’t know. Hunk?”

“Nope! Coran. See? It’s like those old alien headbands.” He grins, oh-so pleased with his cleverness, and sets it carefully to the side. “You think Allura would like a matching one? Or maybe just a normal one?”

“Lance, we still don’t know if they’re dangerous!”

“I’m fine!” He gestures widely to the crown on his head, nearly smacks Keith in the face. “Besides, do you really think Allura would let us off to explore if something like this could kill us?”

Keith snorts. “I think she would expect the defenders of the universe to not go touching alien flowers.”

“ _ Or _ ,” Lance says, smirking, “she expects us to be strong enough to handle it.”

“One of us, anyway.”

Keith snickers as Lance shoves him to the side, quickly brushing the blue off his jacket before it can stain. He lets himself fall the rest of the way down, adjusts himself to keep the rocks on the ground from digging into his back, and closes his eyes.

The breeze slips through his jacket, and he feels the flesh on his arms rise even as the sun warms his face. Lance shifts beside him, making quiet noises as he continues working, humming tunes Keith doesn’t recognize. At one point the boy groans in annoyance, the soft, telltale snap of a stem making Keith laugh, and he gets a handful of grass sprinkled on his face. Lance gets a jab in the side.

Occasionally Keith will glance at Lance, watch him finish up a crown for Shiro that has three flowers in the center, one for Pidge that has weeds sticking up around the tops, one for Hunk that nearly overflows with flowers. Another one that sure as hell better not be for him. 

“...Hey, Keith?” Lance asks hesitantly, quietly, as if afraid to break the peace. “Why don’t you like flowers?”

“I don’t dislike them.”

“You said they were useless.”

“Yeah?”

“Useless is kind of a strong word choice, Keith.”

Keith closes his eyes, frowns at the sky. “It’s...they don’t really  _ do _ anything. I guess picking them is better than buying them, but they just...just... wilt no matter how much you take care of them. You could invest your time in something that, I don’t know, won’t be gone in a week.” He huffs, thoughts and feelings refusing to give way to words. “I get they’re pretty and--and some people like them apparently, but I just...don’t see the point in keeping them when you could just go outside and see them.” He bits his lip, looks at Lance. “Does...that make sense?”

“In a super depressing way, yeah.” Lance leans forward, plucks a flower, gingerly adds it to his crown. Both his hands are stained deep blue. It’s hard to distinguish his fingers from the stems anymore, like the flowers are actually blooming out from his skin. “Then why are you here if you don’t care for flowers? You could’ve gone with Shiro or stayed in the castle and...do what it is you do.”

Keith pokes at the ground, shrugs. “It was the best option,” he says carefully.

“This is the fifth time you came with me somewhere! Five planets in a row  _ I _ was your best option?” Suspicion drips from his words. He’s stopped fiddling with the flowers in his hands. 

“It was an impulse,” Keith snaps. A horrible, horrible impulse in the long line of horrible, horrible impulses that has him asking Lance to train with him and grabbing lunch with him and volunteering to hang out with him. He grabs his knife a little more forcefully than necessary, the metal making a clean sound against its holder as he unsheathes it.

Lance shuts up.

The sun glints off his knife. He can see a fuzzy image of himself in it, the blue blades of grass sticking out of his dark hair, the stormy expression on his face, but he still pulls a cloth out of his pocket to clean it anyway. 

It’s calming, both the repetitive motion and the feeling of cloth on his fingertips. It keeps him from lingering on the tenseness in the air, the stupid guy next to him with his stupid flowers and stupid blue hands and stupid face.

“I like flowers,” Lance says suddenly. “I mean I know they wither and the petals get all over the place and you gotta throw them away, but they always make my mom smile when they’re on the table. And my sister always picks a dandelion for her girlfriend from the front yard when they go out and it’s cute as hell. And my little brother always wants me to make these crowns for him,” Lance says, frantically resuming work as he rambles. “They always fall apart in an hour, but he never stops bugging me! But they make him happy and he loves giving them to my mom so just enjoy it for, like... maybe a minute?”

The crown is on his head before he can react, Lance close and right there with his own stupid flower crown and stupid nervous smile--

And impulse beats fast at his hands and arms and body and he’s never quite been good at containing impulses to start with, but it’s always been worse with Lance and this feels a lot like plummeting blind in his lion with Lance egging him on.

Keith closes his eyes against it all, moving even as he braces for the consequences to come, sucking in a deep breath as if preparing for the sea to swallow him. Which he is, he supposes.

He expects a crash. He gets the light feather of a touch instead, hands braced on his chest but not quite fast enough to stop their lips from connecting.

Awkward. 

Awkward, awkward, awkward but so, so,  _ so _ worth it. Worth the startled squeak that could rival the mice in the castle that jumps from Lance. Worth the moment it stops being just lips touching lips and becomes an actual kiss. Worth the way Lance’s hand slides up from his chest to cup his cheek, leans in to increase the pressure. Worth the moment when it stops being awkward and starts being...nice.

They pull apart, chests heaving, not moving. Their knees knock against each other with the slightest shift of weight, but neither boy will look at the other. Lance's hand drops slowly from his face to relocate to his wrist, Keith's eyes still closed as he savours the heat on his mouth, the lingering pressure of Lance’s hand against his cheek.

They snap open when Lance starts to laugh.

“What?” Keith demands. “ _ What? _ ” Did he mess up? What happened?!

“Y-your face,” Lance giggles. He hunches in on himself, laughter edging on the verge of hysterics. Is it the flowers messing with his head? Or is it just Keith? Fuck, this was a mistake.

He’s halfway to his feet, clumsy as he tries to yank his wrist out of Lance’s hand, but he’s yanked back down to the ground by the gasping paladin. His ankle folds uncomfortably beneath him. His butt smarts nearly as much as his pride.

Lance taps at Keith’s jaw. “I...I left a handprint,” he snorts. His calloused fingers brush over Keith’s skin, spread back out to cup his cheek. His smirk wavers as more giggles tries to break free. “Oops.”

Keith blinks. “...Wait...you left a  _ handprint?! _ ” He tries to shoves Lance away, to wipe it off before it stains, but Lance’s other hand comes up to grip the back of Keith’s neck, laughter free as he fights to keep his hand on Keith’s face. It’s grudgingly impressive, hand unyielding even when Keith shoves him onto his back and tries to shake free. Lance’s legs grab him around the waist, flip their positions, and Keith growls up at him.

“Why the hell don’t you fight like this when it matters!”

Lance shrugs. “I think this matters.”

“What, permanently scarring my face?”

“And you call  _ me _ vain.”

“You have five face creams!”

Lance rolls off him, flower crown falling off his head. He closes his eyes. “You have a mullet, Keith. A mullet! I don’t want to hear anything from you.”

Keith rolls his eyes and reaches for his knife. Sure enough, he can see a giant blue handprint stark against his skin in his reflection. He brushes his own fingers against it, and they come away clean. “This better wash off.”

“You don’t like it?” Lance tries to say it carefully, but it comes out too rushed to be casual. His eyes are open, and Keith has to bite back a smile at his slightly frazzled expression.

Keith adjusts his crown and stands up. “Well, you sure aren’t putting your hands on me again until you wash that off.”

“But--” Lance gaps at him before his face moves into what Keith assumes is supposed to be an attractive, flirty expression. He’s just a little too eager to pull it off though. The effect is ridiculous when compounded with the sudden confidence in his face. “‘Again,’ huh?”

“Less and less with each passing moment,” Keith says, scooping up the other flower crowns. He breaks into a run when Lance comes after him, laughs when his own crown comes off and Lance makes a diving catch for it.

Waving in the wind, Keith can see the flower Lance placed on the back, its five petals a star among the four-petalled diamonds, and he walks back to reclaim it.

Lance is up faster than he should be with those lanky limbs and pecks him on the cheek. Right where the handprint is.

“Sap,” Keith says, but he can feel the heat flooding his face.

“I'm not the one who kissed you for useless flowers,” Lance counters. 

Keith grabs Lance's hand, drags him along and ignores the goofy grin spreading across Lance’s red face. “Maybe they aren't  _ entirely _ useless. Just ninety-five percent useless.”


End file.
